Saving a life
THAT was a trip and a half. I'm not quite back to where I was normally (some half version of sanity?! 😁) but I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel where I really wasn't for a few days. I truly have to thank my friends and family for putting up with me. They answered my nonsensical phone calls, my grandma just hugged me extra long when I asked her too, and a friend from way out East came to visit me, instead of jetting off to a beach vacation when she had the chance, and I reached out to a long-time family friend one morning.
When I first arrived in Montreal, things weren't so bright and and I had very little coping skills (also repatriation + reverse culture shock + shaky marriage + lack of proper medical care), I reached out an extremely qualified psychologist. Not a shrink where you sit down and talk about your childhood and how your mom didn't like your drawing enough when you were 5 years old or whatever, a shrink that gets real and teaches you how to learn how to feel the INTENSE feelings properly. No deflection, no swallowing them up, no pushing them aside because they are an inconvenient waste of time (ahem, that last one was my issue). It took some time but I have the tools for life, and I believe that these tools are being taught more and more in school, because if we don't learn them early, how else are we supposed to learn them? Anyway, I can reach out and speak to him when I need to and I spoke to him this week.
He was telling me that police/fire/ambulance/first responders are taught very on to think of themselves as "saving" the person that they rescue, and that perhaps I should start retelling my story in that way. Nothing "happened" to me. Yes, it was traumatic having to check for breathing and a pulse and all of the details of the 36 hours, but it happened to him. He was the one that went through it all. I "saved" him, and gave him another chance. What he chooses to do with it, is beyond me and beyond my control and I helped him. With a lot of caring and kind compassion.
This has helped me a lot and has even let me have a little bit of sleep. I haven't slept much since it's happened. Shrinko helped me see that it is still traumatic to go through all of this, I mean, I'm not used to finding an unconscious body of someone that I care about and then find out that he didn't poison himself, he's an alcoholic of 20+ years, plus watching the detox process is something that I don't wish on anyway - let me rephrase that, I don't wish anyone to have to go through the detox process. But, let me rephrase this. I'm retelling my story that I helped save someone. The events of me helping him were traumatic - and I'll get over that, but I am getting over that.
Onward and upward. 💓
When I first arrived in Montreal, things weren't so bright and and I had very little coping skills (also repatriation + reverse culture shock + shaky marriage + lack of proper medical care), I reached out an extremely qualified psychologist. Not a shrink where you sit down and talk about your childhood and how your mom didn't like your drawing enough when you were 5 years old or whatever, a shrink that gets real and teaches you how to learn how to feel the INTENSE feelings properly. No deflection, no swallowing them up, no pushing them aside because they are an inconvenient waste of time (ahem, that last one was my issue). It took some time but I have the tools for life, and I believe that these tools are being taught more and more in school, because if we don't learn them early, how else are we supposed to learn them? Anyway, I can reach out and speak to him when I need to and I spoke to him this week.
He was telling me that police/fire/ambulance/first responders are taught very on to think of themselves as "saving" the person that they rescue, and that perhaps I should start retelling my story in that way. Nothing "happened" to me. Yes, it was traumatic having to check for breathing and a pulse and all of the details of the 36 hours, but it happened to him. He was the one that went through it all. I "saved" him, and gave him another chance. What he chooses to do with it, is beyond me and beyond my control and I helped him. With a lot of caring and kind compassion.
This has helped me a lot and has even let me have a little bit of sleep. I haven't slept much since it's happened. Shrinko helped me see that it is still traumatic to go through all of this, I mean, I'm not used to finding an unconscious body of someone that I care about and then find out that he didn't poison himself, he's an alcoholic of 20+ years, plus watching the detox process is something that I don't wish on anyway - let me rephrase that, I don't wish anyone to have to go through the detox process. But, let me rephrase this. I'm retelling my story that I helped save someone. The events of me helping him were traumatic - and I'll get over that, but I am getting over that.
Onward and upward. 💓
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